 You have this white-hot culture war, and really the only people who have a solution to the culture war are libertarians. Dave Smith is a comedian, podcaster, and one of the most visible faces of the Mises Caucus, which took control of the Libertarian Party at its National Convention in Reno this May. We stand for repealing the entire progressive era. That's what our movement is about. Every inch of it. Smith gained a following in the comedy world with his seat on the raunchy Legion of Skanks podcast. She goes, listen, do they say horrible things? Yes. Do I have to leave sometimes? Obviously. Sure. Do I hate myself for being there? Absolutely. But technically speaking, they are not members of the National Socialist German Workers Party. That's right. From 1938. Which he's parlayed into a career as a successful political commentator who often appears on cable news and massively popular podcasts like the Joe Rogan Experience and Tim Cass with Tim Pool. But the Mises Caucus. Yes. Dave Smith. They're the only good thing as far as I'm concerned. He regularly sounds off on political issues and intro libertarian disputes on his own show part of the problem. You still keep saying if you run for president. If no one else emerges who can fucking do what I know I can do, then I will do what I have to do. We caught up with Smith and Reno to get his take on the Mises Caucus takeover, the future of the Libertarian Party, and to discuss his own status as a possible 2024 Libertarian presidential candidate. Dave Smith. Thanks for talking to me. We're at the Reno Reset, which is happening. How will the Libertarian Party be better now that the Mises Caucus has effectively taken it over? Well, I think now the Libertarian Party is going to be, have you ever seen that the meme of the, it's like the Libertarian Ideas, Libertarian Party, and under Ideas there's like a picture of like a ferocious wolf and then there's like a little puppy or something. Like a mangy dog. Yeah. That's the idea is that the party's going to represent the Ideas of Libertarianism, which are the Ideas that all of the people here and all of the people at Reason Magazine love so much, which is, it's high time that it was represented in the party. What are the priorities of the Mises Caucus? Well, the priorities of the Mises Caucus have always been basically the priorities of the Ron Paul Revolution, which were being anti-war, being sound Austrian economics, which right now, particularly with inflation raging, I think is a really good time to be sound on that. And then of course throughout the last two years, just completely opposing the rise of the COVID regime and all of the insanity that's ruined tens of millions of Americans' lives and many more people around the world. How do you talk about that going forward as COVID and most of the restrictions and stuff like that start to fade away? Well, I think number one, like with all of these things, they never completely fade away. You know, like it's kind of like the fear after 9-11 of another terrorist attack fades away, but we still have the Department of Homeland Security and we still have the TSA and all this stuff. I think it's important for people to know right now, as the American people are feeling the pain from the last two years, that this is what happened and that the government was wrong about all of it. From my perspective, I think the lockdowns were one of the greatest crimes perpetrated against the American people by the state. It was appalling that anyone who was advocating and implementing these policies are still in power and a lot of them are. What should the Libertarian Party platform be, a position be on immigration? I don't particularly have a big problem with the current position on immigration, which I think something says like we're against unreasonable restrictions or something like that. I don't know. There's a few issues, a handful of issues, immigration, abortion, where there is a divide amongst Libertarians. I don't know that the party necessarily needs to take a strong position one way or the other on those issues. So that's up to candidates too? Yeah. I'd be fine with that. Sure. I mean, I think that the way I look at it is like if you are speaking broadly to the liberty movement and you go, okay, if you are against the wars and against the lockdowns and the mandates and against the Federal Reserve and against the war on drugs and against the national spying apparatus and the national police state and all of this stuff, that's a lot to unify around. And instead of really picking these fights over the one or two issues that might divide us, as a national party, I'm happy with them just not even having a locked position on that. But I don't know. We'll see what happens with the platform stuff at the convention. Right. How important is the platform to the party? I think it's not unimportant, but I think it's much more important the messaging from individuals, from the high profile people in the party on the LNC and from candidates. So that's more important in general. You have no problem striking the language specifically denouncing bigotry. I don't care about that personally. Because you are a bigot? Yeah. I'm offended, as you know, so well, like, no, I mean, the thing is that this language is in there to strike it down would send a message that I don't know is necessarily a great message. I do think there's a strong argument to be made that it doesn't really belong in the platform. I do think bigotry can be repugnant and irrational. I also think that like farting in public is rude, but I don't know if that belongs in the libertarian party platform. But a more serious note, loving your children, I think is a very important value. It's not really something that belongs in a libertarian party platform. So I get the argument, on the other hand, it's just not very important to me that it's in there. Now, the abortion plank, on the other hand, might actually really be a deal breaker for a lot of people. If the fact that we condemn bigotry is in the platform is actually a deal breaker for someone, I'm okay with that. When you say that about abortion, you know, the plank is really about the government's role in abortion. So yeah, I know you're pro-life. But do you think the government should be involved in regulating? Well, look, if you are pro-life and the position is that abortion is murder, and I know me and you kind of debated this a bit on a podcast years ago, and I think even- You know, it might be every week. I don't know. Yeah. There you go. There you go. I think it was before COVID times, so many years ago, and even you said that you kind of, you're pro-choice, but you did think that at a certain point in pregnancy, you could consider abortion murder. So if you're going to say that it's murder, I wouldn't call it murder, but the fetus- But the pro-life position certainly is that it's murder. Right. From the moment of conception. If it is murder, to say that the government has no, no, well, even if you, at a certain point it's murder, to say that the government has no role in that is a pro-choice position. The idea of saying you can have whatever feeling you want about abortion, but it should be legal, that's the pro-choice position. So the question is, should we have a pro-choice plank in our platform when libertarians are very divided on that issue? I would say no. Okay. So then if life begins at the moment of conception, what is the role of government in protecting the life of the unborn? Well, look, I'm an Ann Cap. I don't think there's any role for government ever doing anything. But if you're saying what is the role of protecting innocent life from being murder, I would say anyone capable of doing it has a moral right to do that. So does that create an abortion place? So we get the TSA out of taking our shoes off or checking our bags, and they start checking our wombs. I mean, look, practically speaking, in today's America, which our federal government of course is I think the most tyrannical force in the world, yeah, probably it'd be much better off being left to the states, being left to localities for them to make their own decisions. There are places in the world where abortion is illegal and they do not have this kind of like abortion, Gestapo, nightmare situation that pro-choicers create. Murder being illegal does create a black market for murderers, but it's still better than murder being legal. What is the function of the Libertarian Party? Well, I think the function of the Libertarian Party on the national level is to spread our message and kind of plant a flag for the American people to say that there is an alternative to this kind of binary, this left-right Democrat-Republican binary, and here's the other option, and that's embracing individual liberty and human freedom, and that we should explain this to people because the fact is that the vast majority of the American people have not heard this message, certainly not heard it in a compelling way. On the more local level, I think we should be trying to win as many offices as we can and to coalition with left-wingers or right-wingers on issues that we agree with them on and try to move the needle. I think there's lots of potential things that the Libertarian Party could do. I think in many state elections and local elections, we're the difference. We can be the split, and I think we can use that to put serious pressure on the incumbent parties to do some things that we want to. I'm very comfortable being a little bit more Machiavellian with the Libertarian Party. I think if you had an incumbent and we were the difference between them being re-elected or losing to say like a Democrat or whatever, and we were to just blatantly extort them and say, OK, well, here's what we want. I have a list of 300 people in your state who are in jail on gun possession charges and drug possession charges. I want them all released. I want to pardon for all of them and we'll bow out. I wouldn't be opposed to something like that. Anything that actually creates more freedom for real people, I'm fine with doing. Now, I don't run the Libertarian Party. That's just my feeling on it. But I think there's a lot that we can do. And most importantly, I think, is really influencing the culture, which I think the Libertarian Party has historically been almost comically removed from what's actually happening in the country. So when you say influencing the culture, what do you mean? Well, I just mean that like, look, right now you have people who are fighting over so many issues. You have this white-hot culture war. And really the only people who have a solution to the culture war are Libertarians. No, but the other solution, the solution from the Democrats is basically like what we could use the Department of Homeland Security to round up 73 million Trump voters and accuse them all of being terrorists. And the solution from the Republican Party, I don't know, seems to be like, we'll pass a bill that says you can't propagandize our children until the fourth grade or something. Like, none of this can possibly work. And the only way to end the culture war, which many people are sick of, is to call a truce. The only way to call a truce is to decentralize power. If we're all fighting over who has power in Washington, DC, to rule over 320 million Americans, you're never going to get away with, you're not going to vanquish the 73 million people who voted for Donald Trump. You're not going to vanquish the 70 million people who voted for Biden and the 10 million fake ones. You know what I mean? You're just kidding. I'm kidding. Yeah. Are you going to run for the Libertarian Party nomination, presidential nomination? I honestly, I really don't know. My whole thing has been, I want to get through this weekend. Well, I've been saying, I want to get through this weekend. Well, this weekend it's over, right? It's a FEDA company, Dave. Come on. It does seem like that now. You have your coterie here. Well, so my thing was like, look, if we go into this, I was very confident we were going to win, but you never know what's going to happen. So I was like, well, if we go into this and we don't win, well, then that's not happening. I'm not going to do that. Now that we have one, you know, I look at it like this. I really don't want to. But a lot of people here want me to. And I understand why they do. So self-sacrifice. No, it's not. No, it's a very Randian. You don't like cheese? No, no, no, no. This is a very Randian selfish approach. I like what I'm doing. I'm having more fun. There's a lot of things that are not fun about running a campaign. I do stand-up comedy and podcast and make a good living and I have a nice family. I'm having a good time. But I think I could do something and create something really cool, like a cool moment for this slight cause. Now, if somebody else could do that and could do a better job at it, I'd be quite happy to just be the podcaster who's supporting that person doing it. So we've got to kind of see who's willing to step up. Justin Amash could do that. I think Justin Amash is like, I really like Justin Amash a lot. And I think he's one of the greatest congressmen to ever live. I think that. That is kind of a condemnation, but OK. Yeah, no, but he's like really one of the best ever. And he's actually great. Like, you're right. There's better compliments than one of the best congressmen. But he's a great libertarian. I think a really great guy. I think for us to be successful from a presidential candidate, what you need to do is inspire a movement. We got 1.5% of the vote last year. If we're not going to go from that to getting 35% of the vote by playing it safe. I think if we had gotten 33% of the vote last time and we needed to get 35% to win the presidency and someone was suggesting run me or Justin Amash, I'd say you're crazy to think me. Play it safe and go with Justin Amash and try to pick up these 2%. I don't know. I think right now where we are, we have to have a different strategy. Ukraine seems to be doing well with a comedian as president. Why not? That's the most prosperous time in Ukraine's history. Yeah, they're doing very well, actually. But from his perspective, his career has never been hotter. That's true. That's my platform. Putin will invade us if you elect me president. And I think a lot of Republicans would be happy with that, right? Yeah. How will you deal as a president-entrepreneur? You are a comedian. You are a host of a podcast called Legion of Skanks. I'm not familiar with that show. This is all lies spread by the fake news. That'll be my help. Just deny it. How do you deal with that? I mean, because like you have said every off-color joke, probably that is imaginable, right? There's a room of a million monkeys and a million typewriters. You have said more dirty jokes, ethnic jokes, off-color jokes than them. How do you present yourself to the public and say those are jokes, this is real? Or how do you deal with it? I think that if you look at the country, say like the right half of America completely hates this kind of like woke, scold culture of where everyone gets canceled for anything politically incorrect. And of the left half of America, I think about 70% of them hate this woke, scold culture where everyone gets canceled. The idea that like you're gonna put a comedian's jokes through a fine-tooth comb and go over, I think my response to that would be, I am a professional comedian in the United States of America and I will joke about whatever the fuck I wanna joke about. That's my response. And if you wanna go back and put everything George Carlin ever said or Richard Pryor ever said under a microscope. They just run for president of the largest party. That's true. No, I'm just asking you to rehearse your rebuttal because this stuff will come up. Yeah, sure. Well, that's right. They didn't, but I am if I were to and that's that. And the people who are outraged about who's made inappropriate jokes are the people who are presiding over the bankruptcy of the most powerful country in the history of the world. And maybe that's a little bit more important to be outraged about. You once said that if Ron DeSantis ran for president, like there'd be no reason to have a libertarian candidate or he would be it. So if Ron DeSantis is running for president, will you not run for president? No, no, no, no. What I said was that if Ron DeSantis was running for reelection for governor of Florida, that I think it would be foolish for the libertarians to run against him and put maybe be the difference to get a Democrat elected. Look. What do you like about Ron DeSantis? Well, the way he handled the COVID regime. I mean, that's, to me, that was the greatest threat to the basic liberty of the most American people over the last couple of years. And in a time where he really stood down the world and was one of the very few, I mean, Kristi Noem, I guess, did a little better than him. But really, he gave the people of Florida more liberty than almost any other place in civilized society that you could go. And for us to not, you know, it's like, okay, I'm not saying he's perfect on everything. He's very bad on a lot of other issues. But do we care about people being perfect philosophically in our abstractions that they have the same unified theory of ethics that we have? Or do we care about actual liberty in actual people's lives? I care about the latter. I mean, I care about the former too, but I care more about the latter. And so I do think that where there is a major difference between a Democrat and a Republican, and like, had a Democrat won, I forget who ran against DeSantis in his last election, but it was a very, it was a very close election. Easily could have been a Democrat in there. What would Florida have looked like if there was a Democrat governor in there? Would have been a drastically less free place over the last two years. Libertarians should recognize that and care about that. Now, I do not think if Ron DeSantis ran for president, we shouldn't run someone against him because there is no difference between Democrat and Republican presidents. They're all terrible, and we know they're not gonna be good there. I think he should stay where he is as governor. The Libertarian party obviously has to grow, right? What are the populations that are most prime for the picking? I would say people who already tend to be anti-government in general. I think that you have a big, there's a big movement on the right half of America that has really grown to be distrustful of Washington, D.C. in general. I mean, it's pretty amazing for people like me and you who have been Libertarians for a while now to see that it's like popular amongst Republicans to hate the CIA and the FBI and the warfare state, not trust the Pentagon. I think the fact that so much of the messaging from those organizations has gone woke, it has helped to build that in the fact that they all turned against Donald Trump. So I think there's some fertile ground there. I think on the left side of America, I think the fact that there were a lot of people who were very upset about police brutality and incarceration rates, and they see Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do nothing for them on that. I think a lot of them are also turning away from the kind of rigid dogma of the woke ideology of the kind of corporates Democrats are using now. So I think there's a lot of fertile ground there. But I would look for, say, examples like, if I was, I wanna talk to everyone, but I think maybe a Tulsi Gabbard voter would be a little bit better, more likely to yield results than a Kamala Harris voter. Is a Joe Rogan listener your natural constituency? I don't know if you could describe Joe Rogan listener as one particular type of person, because he's got such a huge audience. There's all, you know, he's got like his MMA listeners and then he's got his comedy fans, then he's got the people who like his kind of political stuff. So I don't know, I do think that one of the things that Joe Rogan listeners and like Tim Poole listeners and people into these like big, you know, podcasts is that they seem to be at least open minded enough that they wanna listen to a long form discussion about ideas and hear from different people. So I think that's pretty like fertile ground for libertarians to be, I think we have some really compelling things to say. So sure, why not try to reach them? Who are people that should not be part of a libertarian coalition? I don't know. The coalition, I think can be very loose. I mean, there could be somebody who's really terrible on a million issues, but is really great on, I don't know, like ending the war on drugs. I wouldn't be opposed to working with that person to end the war on drugs without endorsing any of their other views. I think that people, for me, like being anti-war is a really big one for me. I think if you're not on that side, we're probably not on the same. But again, there are people who might support the war but be really great on gun rights. I wouldn't be against coalitioning with them on some issue of gun rights. To be a member of the Libertarian Party or to really be what I would consider a libertarian, I think, yeah, but major issues like that would be deal breakers for me. But I also don't really care. There's members of the Libertarian Party. They don't have to agree with us on everything. I wouldn't support candidates or people in leadership positions unless I thought they were pretty good on these issues. How do you evaluate Trump these days? Because at various points, you were pretty Trumpy. You had a lot of good things to say about him. I was never pretty Trumpy. You did a special where you were like, Trump's not so bad. We've had conversations about that. Well, listen, go back and listen to my interview and what I said about Donald Trump. I said there were many things that were deal breakers for me. No, listen, Trump is hilarious. I enjoyed the comedy. I think that Donald Trump as a president was an awful president. I think he's a war criminal and should probably be tried and convicted for war crimes. And he could spend the rest of his life in a maximum security prison with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Barack Obama as a cultural figure. He was pretty damn entertaining and he certainly represented this massive repudiation of the elite class, of the corporate press, of the political class. And I think that he exposed a lot within that whole apparatus, with how crazy he made them and how just completely transparently dishonest they all were in this attempt to get him any way they could. And look, I mean, they freaking, they framed the president of the United States for being a Russian spy for like four years. That's a pretty incredible thing to watch. So he himself is, I find to be in like, in ignoramus and in embarrassment. And I think he was a horrible president and he also just, I think is like a disgusting person. Like he's the guy who like, is banging a porn star while his wife's pregnant. Just a horrible person. But what he happened to be in this scene was like just famous enough and rich enough and brash enough and enough of a dick that he was kind of able to expose a lot about this system is a very unique, interesting figure. What's your evaluation of Joe Biden? I love him as the face of the empire. I mean, I think it's just glorious. I mean, it's really unbelievable. I kind of feel bad for him regularly. I mean, it's like, I feel like every time Joe Biden is speaking, you feel like this might be the moment it all falls apart. Like he might just blow the whole thing right now. I think, you know, Joe Biden is, if I were to have someone who was the representation of the last 40 years of American federal government policy, I think Joe Biden's the guy for it. And I think everybody knows that he's, you know, I mean, everybody knows, but his approval rating seems to indicate that most people know that this guy is simply not up to the task of being president. Justin Amash yesterday gave a talk where he said that the party cannot simply be the party of kind of Rothbardian and caps. And that candidates who run for office as libertarians need to reach a broader array of people. What do you think of that? Yeah, well, I completely agree with that. Yeah, the party can't just be for Rothbardian and caps. I mean, I don't think there's any question about that. Yeah, I think we need to reach a broad group of people. But the question is, how do you reach a broad group of people? Is it necessarily the case that by you compromising on those values, you're now gonna reach more people? Or is it the truth that by really believing in what you believe in, you end up inspiring a lot more people? I mean, look, I think that, you know, the socialists, the democratic socialists in our country, they're not embarrassed about being democratic socialists at all. And the neocons aren't embarrassed about being neocons. Why should we be embarrassed about being libertarians? That's so much more awesome than what they are. So my thing is not that we should only be appealing to people who are like 100% libertarians. My thing is that we should explain to people what we stand for. And in the same sense that like the neoconservatives weren't only getting votes from people who were complete chainites, but they told you what they stand for. I think we can do the same thing and what we stand for is a lot better. What are you most hopeful about the LP doing in the next couple years between now and 2024 now that the Mises Caucus is kind of running the show? I think re-sparking the Ron Paul revolution. I think that's the task right in front of us. I think if we're ever gonna be, like if we're ever gonna get to be a more free society, we need to have a lot more people who desire a free society. I don't think there's any path there without that. And the only way to do that is to inspire a lot of enthusiasm and energy, particularly amongst young people. So I think if we're playing the long game here, that's what matters the most. And the only way to do that is to actually stand for something and really introduce people to a radical new way of thinking about things. You know, you don't do that by running Bill Weld and saying, hey, this is the most boring, moderate establishment guy we could find to call himself a libertarian. That's never gonna be a game changer. And that's what we need here is a game changer. So I think like the energy we've had here this weekend has been incredible. And I'm very excited for what we're gonna do going forward.